Shooting at CT elementary school leaves at least 27 dead, 18 of them children

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Yeah, there have certainly been cases in which the godawful state of mental health 'treatment' in the U.S has clearly contributed to a massacre (I dimly recall that being the case in the VA Tech thing anyway

I'm actually pretty ignorant about this, so cite?

I mean everytime I read about Autism or other mental health issues on blogs or articles by Americans I do get the desire to punch things (unless it is written by actual 'sufferers') but I don't know much about the information about treatment except that the writers of the DSM-V need to go DIAF. 

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This. Good lord this.

Anyway mental health issues do not really explain why these things only frequently occur in the United States.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I'm actually pretty ignorant about this, so cite?

Literally just going off vague memory and haven't double-checked it, so don't entirely remember. I could easily be misremembering completely.

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Hard to disagree...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

With regards to a point made earlier, it's worth noting that the big mental hospitals were shut down in more countries than just the U.S in the 80s and 90s ('care in the community' and so on) and that, whatever the merits or otherwise of this policy, no other Western country has this... problem.

[J. J.]

Why do people act like it would be so easy to get an illegal gun if the most deadly guns were illegal?  I agree it would be possible for years, until the police eventually confiscate them all, but I definitely don't think it would be easy.  I think most people don't really have any idea where to find an illegal gun...

It's not at all difficult to acquire marijuana despite decades of prohibition.

Can you grow guns in your closet?

You can make them, and a whole bunch of nastier stuff, out of things around the house.  The instructions are now in PDF form. 

[minionofmidas]

With regards to a point made earlier, it's worth noting that the big mental hospitals were shut down in more countries than just the U.S in the 80s and 90s ('care in the community' and so on) and that, whatever the merits or otherwise of this policy, no other Western country has this... problem.

Actually... looking through the lists I find on wikipedia I find my suspicion confirmed that Germany (and Finland, too, I notice) is closer to the US than to the rest of Western Europe on this.
One of the reasons why these things happen is simply that there's an established pattern of these things happening. Everyone's heard of them.
(Though handgun ownership is relatively widespread and hasslefree in Germany by Western European standards. Though a lot less so than in Switzerland and Austria.)

You can make them, and a whole bunch of nastier stuff, out of things around the house.

Not high quality ones. Takes an expert with expert tools to calibrate the aim.

[J. J.]

You can make them, and a whole bunch of nastier stuff, out of things around the house.

Not high quality ones. Takes an expert with expert tools to calibrate the aim.

The guns, yes.  The explosives, no, as Timothy McVeigh proved. 

[minionofmidas]

You can make them, and a whole bunch of nastier stuff, out of things around the house.

Not high quality ones. Takes an expert with expert tools to calibrate the aim.

The guns, yes.  The explosives, no, as Timothy McVeigh proved. 

Exactly, and I did get you meant explosives by "nastier stuff". But the discussion here was about guns.

[J. J.]

You can make them, and a whole bunch of nastier stuff, out of things around the house.

Not high quality ones. Takes an expert with expert tools to calibrate the aim.

The guns, yes.  The explosives, no, as Timothy McVeigh proved. 

Exactly, and I did get you meant explosives by "nastier stuff". But the discussion here was about guns.

Well, since the analogy was marijuana, you will not be growing high grade Hawaiian in you closet either.   

[minionofmidas]

You'd be surprised.

[J. J.]

You'd be surprised.

Not that much.  I've known a few people that have tried over the course of the years.  I'm told that in my native West Central PA, there are a few secluded fields, that are of terrible quality. 

[minionofmidas]

Yeah, no one would bother to import weed (as opposed to hashish) to the Rhein Main area anymore. We grow our own.

[7,052,770]

Wait, nobody died in the Chinese school knifing incident? That sure isn't how the pro gun lobby was spinning it. If only Lanza had only had a knife...

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Obviously we just need to apply a 1791 standard to the 2nd amendment. If the weapon existed when the amendment was ratified, you're allowed to own as many of them as you want. If it was only invented after 1791, it's illegal to own one.

Checkmate, strict constructionists.

(Realistically though, a ban on semi-automatics (automatics are already banned I'm pretty sure) and magazines with more than a handful of bullets, seems sensible.)

You want to be careful with this line of argument. Does the First Amendment not apply to the Internet, TV and radio?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Obviously we just need to apply a 1791 standard to the 2nd amendment. If the weapon existed when the amendment was ratified, you're allowed to own as many of them as you want. If it was only invented after 1791, it's illegal to own one.

Checkmate, strict constructionists.

So shall we abolish the air force?

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Semi-automatic loading is a useful feature for a hunting rifle, and most handguns these days are semi-automatic, so I really doubt that a ban on semi-automatic rifles is feasible here.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Yeah, there have certainly been cases in which the godawful state of mental health 'treatment' in the U.S has clearly contributed to a massacre (I dimly recall that being the case in the VA Tech thing anyway; though I might be remembering wrongly), but that's about as far as you can go. Most of the rest of the time we are generally talking of after the fact diagnoses, and often of the 'well, you'd have to be mentally ill to do a thing like this' variety. Which is about as useful as a chocolate blast furnace.

In any case, most people (and by 'most' I mean 'in excess of 99 per cent') people with mental health problems are no more dangerous than the rest of society. That includes the minority of cases that are things more obviously 'scary' than depression and the like. I don't see how increasing the stigma - something that is utterly ludicrious given how common mental health problems are - helps anyone. It certainly wouldn't help to prevent these regular little massacres; the violent punctuation marks of contemporary American society.

Thank. You.

[King]

Wait, nobody died in the Chinese school knifing incident? That sure isn't how the pro gun lobby was spinning it. If only Lanza had only had a knife...

Lanza only got into the building because he shot the locks on the door, so yes, there would not have even been an incident with a knife.

[J. J.]

Wait, nobody died in the Chinese school knifing incident? That sure isn't how the pro gun lobby was spinning it. If only Lanza had only had a knife...

Lanza only got into the building because he shot the locks on the door, so yes, there would not have even been an incident with a knife.

Unless he broke a window with the pommel. 

A serious question, from someone who lives in the supposedly bad neighborhood in the supposedly bad city.  Does anyone remember of an incident like this, a school shooting happening in a city?

[© tweed]

inner city murders are death by papercuts.

[minionofmidas]

Wait, nobody died in the Chinese school knifing incident? That sure isn't how the pro gun lobby was spinning it. If only Lanza had only had a knife...

Lanza only got into the building because he shot the locks on the door, so yes, there would not have even been an incident with a knife.

Unless he broke a window with the pommel. 

A serious question, from someone who lives in the supposedly bad neighborhood in the supposedly bad city.  Does anyone remember of an incident like this, a school shooting happening in a city?

Erfurt. Not a megalopolis or anything, but certainly a city.

[Beet]

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/12/newtown-massacre

[Marokai Backbeat]

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/12/newtown-massacre

Once in awhile I enjoy The Economist.